20 useful tips and tricks for Chrome users

Google Chrome web browser is one of the most popular web browsers and it is full of hidden functions and shortcuts that can save your time and enhance your browsing experience. If you waste few minutes reading this guide you will learn how to take full advantage of using Google Chrome browser.

Tip Number. 1

Have you ever wanted to stop videos and other Flash content to initiate automatically whenever you open a web page? So, here you go: Type chrome://settings/content into browser address bar and scroll down to the “Plug-ins” section. Now chose “Click to play”. From now on, any multimedia content will be displayed as grey box until you click on it to activate it.

Attention, previously mentioned actions may cause some issues with certain websites. If you want to whitelist the websites that heavily depend on plug-ins to fully operate (websites such as Vimeo, YouTube, Pandora, etc.) you will have to click on the “Manage Exceptions” and add them to the whitelist.

Tip Number. 2

It’s not a secret for anyone that you can drag tabs in and out of the main window, however there is another hidden feature. If you middle-click on the tab’s title box it will close the tab.

Tip Number. 3

Also, if you middle-click on the link it will make it to open in a new tab in the background, so you won’t leave the page you are currently viewing and can continue working with it without any interruption. Also you can middle-click on the URL address that appears in the address box within the web browser.

Tip Number. 4

If you have only two buttons on your mouse, you don’t have to worry, simply hold down the Ctrl key and left click on the link and you will be able to perform the same action described in the Tip Number 3. If you press the Shift button while left clicking it will open the link in a new background window instead of tab.

Tip Number. 5

There is another one trick by pressing Alt+Enter after you type a query in your address bar. It will make your search results to open in a new tab and leave your current webpage open.

Tip Number. 6

A lots of users don’t like the revamped New Tab page. If you are one of them we have great news for you. Recently google developed a workaround that allows you to switch back to the old New Tab style, however you may also use a third-party extension called New Tab Redirect to bring back the old style. As soon as you have installed the extension, go to its settings and click the option to view Apps page as your New Tab page. Actually it’s not identical to the old, original New Tab, but well, it’s so close.

Tip Number. 7

If you want to close or move various tabs at the same time hold down the Shift button on your keyboard and click each tittle of the tabs at the top of the browser. It will results in the selection of all of them and then you can drag them out to a new window all together or close them all at the same time by pressing Ctrl+W.

Tip Number. 8

Have you ever closed a tab by mistake and forgot its URL address? Well, by pressing key combination of Ctrl+Shift+T you will be able to reopen closed tabs. If you repeat the key combination again and again it will reopen all of the recently closed tabs in order as they were closed.

Tip Number. 9

To be able to view your browsing history you can simply press Ctrl+H keys on your keyboard, also you can see the most recently viewed web pages within any individual tab by clicking and holding the Back button at the upper left side of the browser (see the image above). If you middle-click and Ctrl-Click or Shift-Click commands described in tips number 3 and 4 it will work here as well and it will open an old link in a new background tab or window.

Tip Number. 10

You can always highlight some text on any web page and right click afterwards. From there you will be able to search for that keyword or text in the Internet. If the text you are highlighting is an URL address, by right clicking on it you will be able to navigate to the webpage without having to copy and paste the URL address.

Tip Number. 11

Another way to search for some keyword or text is just to highlight the desired text and then simply drag it into the address bar. The search will be automatically initiated (if you have highlighted an URL address it will also work as described in the Tip Number 10).

Tip Number. 12

If you want to start a search or navigation in a new tab instead of the current one you can simply highlight the text and drag it to the top-most area of the browser, next to your right most tab.

Tip Number. 13

Whenever you type on Chrome’s address bar the search results by default will be provided by Google, however if you want to search for something on any other website you can type the site name into the address bar(for example Amazon, Ebay or YouTube) and then press Tab key and your search query (see the image above). If the website doesn’t automatically support address bar searching feature you can always manually add it into your Google’s Chrome search engine list. All you have to do is to right click the address bar and chose “Edit search engine”. Also you can set up some custom keyword to use in place of the website’s URL.

Tip Number. 14

Using Google Drive? Did you know that you can search for your files stored on Google Drive directly from Chrome’s address bar? Right click the address bar and chose “Edit search engine” menu and add a new search engine called “Google Drive” and the keyword “gd”. For the URL enter http://drive.google.com/?hl=en&tab=bo#search/%s and afterwards click the Done button. Now, if you want to search for some file in your Google Drive, simply type gd in your address bar press Tab and search straight away within your own Google Drive files (see the image below).

Tip Number. 15

You can make same setup as described in the Tip Number 14 for your Gmail account. Perform the same process described in the Tip Number 14 but instead of the name “Google Drive” make it “Google” with the keyword “gm” and the URL address https://mail.google.com/mail/ca/u/0/#search/%s.

Tip Number. 16

Have you ever wanted to make a shortcut in your Chrome’s address bar for adding new Google Calendar events? You can easily make it by adding a new search engine(same as in previous tips) with the name “Calendar” and keyword “cal”, and the URL http://www.google.com/calendar/event?ctext=+%s+&action=TEMPLATE&pprop=HowCreated%3AQUICKADD.

After you created a new search engine called Calendar to create a new event simply type “cal” in the address bar and press Tab. After that just introduce your event details in plain English (for example “Business Meeting with Apple CEO Monday at 3 p.m.) and Chrome will redirect you directly into the Google Calendar with all the appropriate field already filled in, so all you have to do is to click Save to confirm.

Tip Number. 17

You can also search for your favorite webpages from the address bar. To be able to do so you will need to install a free Chrome extension called Holmes. After you have installed it you can simply type an asterisk in the address bar and press Tab key. After that just type any keywords related to the bookmark you are looking for and you will get instant results.

Tip Number. 18

If you want to see the full list of your bookmarks just press simultaneously Ctrl+Shift+B and it will show the browser’s Bookmarks bar in and out of view. On the top of the screen will appear every website that you have saved in to the Bookmarks. Also, on the far right side you will be able to access a drop-down menu with all of your other bookmarks.

For more efficient look, right click on every website on your Bookmarks Bar and chose Edit option and remove its name. After that your list will be without text with just icons of your favorite pages.

Tip Number. 19

One more useful command to remember is Ctrl+Shift+D. It will save all of your open tabs as bookmarks and put them all in a single folder. If you want to reopen them, just right-click on the folder where they were saved and select “Reopen all bookmarks in new window”.

Tip Number. 20

Another feature that you might seen on your Android phone and wanted on your computer called Google hands-free searching by saying “OK, Google KEYWORD”. To enable this feature you have to download Google’s official Voice Search Hotword extension. Once you’ve done you will be search on the main google web page by voice.